


crossing the wires

by poquito (manta)



Category: Free!
Genre: But contains minor spoilers from the movies, M/M, What-If, no major spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:06:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manta/pseuds/poquito
Summary: A lone redhead is also threading the divide between sand and sea, going at slow enough a speed that Rei figures he'll catch up in a matter of strides.In which Rei has an early morning encounter on the beach.





	crossing the wires

**Author's Note:**

> while watching the free! movies, i was particularly affected by asahi's and rei's interactions, so i wrote this fic while basically in a state of post-movies feels. it takes place some time between rei's second and third year, so movie wise, between timeless medley: kizuna and take your marks. 
> 
> i've never attempted writing rei or asahi, so i hope i've somewhat done them justice. this is just another humble addition to the rei and asahi almosts that occurred—with the hope that they can finally recognize one another in season 3.

Step by step, he pounds the familiar concrete path that winds around the beach.

With his jacket zipped up to cover half of his face, his warm exhalations fog his glasses and the way before him. His mother and father have stopped fretting about whether it's too cold out in the early mornings for him to run; now, he only receives a reminder, containing both pride and a parental concern which will never entirely fade regardless of how conscientious their son is, to bundle up and stretch before he takes off.

Makoto and Haruka are gone, off on a trip with Makoto's family. And Nagisa won't be joining today, either; Rei had all but threatened to barricade him inside. Which was laughable, because threatening Hazuki Nagisa is more akin to a plea that Nagisa just might care to heed. But a high fever is no good, especially for a swimmer in the thick of winter who needs his rest, and Nagisa had acquiesced to a promise of hot chocolate in exchange for recuperating in bed.

The ocean is cold, in more ways than one. Far too cold this time of year to swim in, with its overcast color mirroring the gray clouds above, and Rei considers. He only incorporates running on the beach into his routine for an extra challenge. Not like he'll back down from a challenge, but most morning runs aren't meant to be challenges.

And yet the water beckons anyway, its behemoth of a body rising and falling with each breath.

So Rei changes course, making his way down the sand to run along the shoreline, consciously slowing his pace so as not to waste his energy from the sand's added resistance.

He's not like Haruka, whose magnetism toward the water is something else altogether. But it's difficult now, to imagine he once led a life where he didn't see water without imagining what it was like to submerge himself in it, where he once ran like this solely to test his endurance and with no affinity for the waves that lapped at his feet.

Then he met Nagisa, and the other members of the Iwatobi Swim Club. They welcomed him, swallowed him without hesitation, as the ocean did on that stormy night.

The water can be terrible in its might. Rei had learned that. And he had also learned that for all its terrible might, it can be beautiful, too. 

It's only when Rei looks away, from the waves and up ahead, that he sees he's not alone. A lone redhead is also threading the divide between sand and sea, going at slow enough a speed that Rei figures he'll catch up in a matter of strides.

When he does, the boy doesn't seem surprised to see him. He moves farther away from the shoreline, allowing Rei to take the spot closer to the waves and to pass him if he so desires. The boy seems amiable enough, so Rei pants out a "Thank you", to which the boy replies with an enthusiastic, "Sure!"

They run in companionable silence as they make their way along the beach. It isn't the usual runner's etiquette to start conversations. But here they are, matching each other's pace, with Rei slowing down and the boy speeding up, and Rei figures now is as good a time as any to break the silence to confirm a hypothesis. "Excuse me for asking, but are you a swimmer too?"

The boy's eyes widen, so much to the point it's almost comical. "What?! How did you know?! Are gangsters after me?! Is there a hit out on me?!" He stares at Rei in panic. "Are _you_ the hitman assigned to murder me in cold blood?!"

Though pleased his deduction was correct, Rei doesn't think the boy, currently fearing for his life, would appreciate an extended analysis on how to differentiate swimmers, and then how to recognize those swimmers' stroke specialties, based solely on physical observation. If Nagisa was here, he would have laughed and cut Rei off before he could start, and ironically, it's Nagisa's very absence that makes Rei all the more aware of his own tendencies.

So Rei settles for, "I-I am sure you are an upright and law abiding citizen. I merely came to the conclusion I did because your physique resembles that of a swimmer's."

"Oh!  _Oh_ ," and the boy's saucer-sized eyes shrink considerably. "Well, then. Yeah, I am. I swim butterfly!"

Encouraged by the response, Rei smiles. "What a coincidence. So do I."

"What, really? Get out!" The boy grins. "Maybe I'll race you someday, then. In a pool, I mean. Not like this."

"Are you a resident of Iwatobi? I haven't seen you here before, and my swim club and I run along this route all the time."

"I'm only here for the weekend to visit my grandmother." The boy stands a bit straighter, and his chest puffs out with pride and affection. "She makes the best food! And she gets up early to make me breakfast, even though I always tell her she can sleep in."

"She sounds like a very caring woman," Rei notes.

"Yeah! I'd invite you along to meet her, but I don't know how she'd react."

"That's all right. It's just nice to hear about a grandmother doting on her grandson," and Rei chuckles.

They're almost at the end of the beach. The boy gradually slows to a walk, stopping when the sand does, and Rei stops with him.

"Well, I'm turning back," the boy says, rather apologetically.

"I'm going on ahead," says Rei, and finds he's also sorry to go. "Thank you very much for the company."

"Same here," the boy answers. "Well, bye! I'll see you around, maybe!" When he raises his arm to wave farewell, the boy's expression of sheer joy lights up his face.

It also sparks something sudden in Rei, something recognized and repeated, with the sense he has been greeted in such a way before, in the same capacity, with that same unadulterated joy—

And for a wild moment, he considers chasing after the boy, tapping his shoulder to ask more questions, these ones based not on theoretical observation, but only with the hint of a memory.

_Do I know you_ _? Do you recognize me from somewhere? I apologize, you seem familiar, I don't exactly recall—  
_

For all of Rei's earnestness to seek the answers to unknown questions, he also understands the uncomfortable implications of putting a stranger on the spot. So he stays still, watching the boy making his steady way back down the beach for a few moments, a small moving flame in sharp contrast to an iron grey backdrop, before resuming his own course on the concrete in the opposite direction.

He doesn't know the boy's school, or even his name.

But Rei also has the facts. He and the boy are both swimmers, they both specialize in butterfly, and they both (at least occasionally) reside in the same town.

And, given how he himself headed into Iwatobi High School, firm in his ambitions in track-and-field, only to find himself in a budding new swim club, his heart uncertain but receptive:

If the timing is right, if their paces match, they will meet again.

 


End file.
